A situation in which it is impossible to say, which of two things existed first and which caused the other one.
I have had to take a few days off due to illness recently. Completely off. There was no Hero here…I was fit for nothing. Literally zero. It was days of bed, hydration and medicine…that and Google.
In my late teens, I suffered badly with health anxiety. Every ache and pain, I had convinced myself, was sinister. Every horrifying real life story I read in a magazine, would start with an ailment, that in 24 hours I had. It was awful. I was convinced I was going to die. I was scared to go to sleep for nearly a year. I was a mess. I can’t say what stopped it but I can definitely tell you how it started.
It was the Summer holidays, between Year 11 Senior School and my first year of college. I attended an eye doctor appointment. They wanted to discuss the possibility of squint surgery. Given all my previous medical appointments, I was not concerned about this one. The Ophthalmologist gave me a thorough examination, sat back in his chair and said;
“I believe you have Retinitis Pigmentosa”
Say what? “Are you telling me I’m gonna go blind or something?”
“By the time you are 25, yes. I am going to refer you to a specialist”.
I don’t remember anything more after that. The air in my lungs left my body, all at once. I couldn’t breathe. I was so hot. What now? What now? I ran out the door, through the hospital, all the way out to the carpark. Everything went black. It was happening already.
Right then and there I had my first panic attack. We broke the news to my family, my boyfriend and my mum started making calls. I wanted to believe this was not happening but it was. In a panic, I changed all my college courses. I didn’t want to be alone, I wanted to take courses with my friends. I was re examined by my regular optician, who advised that this diagnosis was wrong. So who was telling the truth? A few weeks later, I was sent to London for hours and hours of tests. The wait for the results was awful. I kept thinking about all the things I wouldn’t do. My life flashed before me in the waiting area. I tried to get up when I heard my name but everything went dark. Not again! I was then in a consulting room, head between my legs, looking into a plastic cup of water.
“What are you afraid of?”. The specialist was talking to me. “What are you afraid of?”. It took forever to find my voice.
“I’m going blind…”
He held my hand and told me that even though, there is pigmentation in the back of my eye – it wasn’t Retinitis Pigmentosa. I was not going to go blind. It was a mistake.
The aftermath of those months in the wilderness, affect me still to this day. I dropped out of college as my new subjects were all wrong. I had weekly panic attacks in public places. This is when my health anxiety first started. There was something wrong with me, they just hadn’t found it yet. Any trip to the optician caused me to freak out. Even now, my eyes and eye sight examinations, occupy so much mental energy.
The feelings during a panic attack are real. Chicken or the Egg? Am I feeling pain because I am thinking about it or is the pain real and I am thinking about it. My brain has played this game and won so many times. In the past, I have managed to convince myself I have a brain tumour, deep vein thrombosis and colon cancer. I am so much better and calmer nowadays. I manage my thought process better but still have the occasional relapse.
Just this last week with my Tonsillitis, me and Google, were hot on the tail of my ‘actual’ diagnosis. I felt so ill that I had convinced myself, it had to be so much more. Hours and hours of bed rest later, resulted in one definitive result – Hodgkin’s lymphoma. My eyesight has deteriorated greatly since my mid 20s. Now it’s positively shocking and even with glasses, I really struggle. All these old memories and experiences are dancing in the forefront of my mind. I need to get them checked out.
Oh my God! Enough! Just stop!
I will get checked out, I can’t put it all to bed if I don’t. Did my brain start this or just finish it? What am I afraid of?
The bloody Chicken and the Egg! I still don’t know who is in charge, let alone who showed up first!